We spoke with Becca Perrin, the Food Hub Account Manager at Green Mountain Farm to School, to learn more about how to start when selling to schools, how new federal and state funding is changing the landscape, and why food hubs play an important role in farm-to-school work. Fill out the form below to read the case study right away!

The post NEW Farm to School Case Study – Green Mountain Direct first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Are you selling farm shares?

Subscribing to a farm share—otherwise known as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)—can be a great way for local-food lovers to support your business.

The classic CSA model is a “farmers choice,” where consumers embrace the element of surprise, not knowing what they’ll receive in each farm share. This model evolved over time, with many farmers, food hubs, and markets offering more-unique share styles.

When done right, offering transparency and flexibility to your farm share can keep your customers coming back—increasing retention rates and growing your sales.

Local Food Marketplace has long-supported sales of traditional farm shares and subscriptions (alongside other sales channels). Through our more recent “Subscription Builder” software—LFM enables farmers and food hubs to sell different types of customizable farm shares!

 Check out this video to watch LFM’s customizable subscription software in action!

Considering Customizable Options for Your Farm Share?

Keep reading to discover the top four ways that food businesses are adding flexibility to their farm shares! We’ve included some success stories of how real-life farmers and food hubs are leveraging LFM to sell their local produce.

What are the different types of customizable Farm Share CSAs?

Here are just some of the ways that single- and multi-producer organizations can offer flexible CSA-style farm shares:

• Buy-Down Model
• Farmers Choice + Add-on Items
• Flexible Farm Shares
• Fully Customizable Farm Shares

Local Food Marketplace supports all of these varieties of CSA models. Reach out today for a free demo to learn more.

What is a Buy-Down Farm Share?

In a buy-down farm share or buy-down CSA, customers pay a bulk subscription fee to the farmer ahead of the growing season. However, instead of receiving a weekly box, a credit is added to their account to spend as they wish!

This model creates loyalty between you and your customers (with credit to spend, they’ll keep coming back to your online store!). To succeed with this model, a software platform that offers transparency between you & your customer is key.

Buy-Down Model in Action! Stout Oak Farm

• Stout Oak Farm uses LFM’s software to offer a buy-down CSA model. Members purchase credits that they can spend at the Stout Oak farm store on veggies, seedlings, or other local food products. Before LFM, the farm-runners used a pen & paper to keep track of customer credits. That’s a lot of math! Moving to LFM’s platform made keeping track of this share effortless—and kept customers coming back. Read the Story!

“The Farm Store Credit Share our most administratively challenging share, and using LFM has been the best system we’ve had! It’s all online, customers can manage it themselves, and LFM keeps track of everything.” – Kate Donald, Stout Oak Farm

Including Add-Ons with your Farmer’s Choice Share.

Offering a traditional “farmers choice” CSA? Allowing shoppers to include “add-ons” with their weekly box gives shoppers more choice while bringing you more revenue. That extra jar of local jam or bundle of kale tacked on to their shares can add up!

This model is perfect for businesses that love the straightforwardness of a Farmer’s Choice Box, yet are looking for ways to sell more “extras” to shoppers—and increase their average order value. (Hint: we’ve written a whole guide about tips & tricks for growing the value of your online orders. Check it out here!!)

Add-Ons in Action! Blue Sky Organic Farms.

Blue Sky Organic Farms offers the best of their vegetable harvest in one weekly box. Shoppers don’t decide what goes in the box, but they can add extra goodies—like the local value-add goods that Blue Sky sources from local food producers across Arizona. Including add-ons to their box has grown sales opportunities for Blue Sky, plus made for happier customers!

Read Blue Sky’s Success Story Here!

“Blue Sky basically has four different sales channels. We reached out to LFM because we need ONE platform that had a shared availability and distribution solution. We’re selling even more now that we have an online presence for all our sales channels, not just CSA.” -Vicki Silvera, Blue Sky Organic Farms

What is a Flexible Farm Share?

With a flexible farm share, the farmer sets a price for their farm shares, and then includes a list of products available for substitution. The price of the box stays the same even if some items are substituted.

This is a great way for farm shares to accommodate allergies, preferences, and picky customers! If a certain veggie doesn’t work for a shopper, they can trade it for something else.

Many local food businesses offer an in-person “swap box” for folks to trade out vegetables they don’t like. With LFM’s subscription builder features—farmers can create an online swap box! It’s easier than ever to offer flexible farm shares.

Flexible Farm Shares in Action! Rosebird Farms

Rosebird Farms uses LFM to sell farm shares online. Through smart marketing, Andrea McAdow, the owner at Rosebird Farms has taught subscribers to get excited for the weekly email letting them know what to expect in this week’s farm share. From there, customers can login to LFM, review their items, swap products from a set list, and add more a-la-cart items.

Check out this video for a walk through of how Rosebird Farms uses email marketing to sell out her CSA in record time!

What is a Fully Customizable CSA?

With a fully customizable CSA, you put the choice in your shoppers’ hands! You create a base or suggested farm share, but before fulfilling orders, customers have the chance to make any changes they like! They can increase quantities, and remove or add items. Final price is determined by the exact items they have selected.

This option works best for businesses with very engaged customers who enjoy full control of their product selections. It’s a great way to let shoppers vary the amount of produce they buy each week, at a price that reflects the amount they take home.

This is truly a CSA model for the modern age, as full customization isn’t possible without powerful software support.

Fully Customizable Farm Shares in Action! Fiddlehead Farm

Fiddlehead Farm is committed to giving the CSA members the choice of everything they grow.

“LFM’s Subscription Builder allows us to ensure that we are only charging members for the vegetables they’re getting, and not penalizing them for wanting something different or for not wanting as many vegetables this week. We grow food and I want it to be eaten.” -Heather Coffey, Fiddlehead Farm

Read about Heather’s step-by-step process for creating customizable shares on LFM.

What Farm Share Works Best for your Business?

No matter what style of farm share you’re selling (from traditional to fully customizable), you need software that works with the unique needs of your business. LFM is an all-in-one platform that helps you plan, sell, and distribute local food. We support CSA subscriptions, retail sales, wholesale, and more, all from a single platform. Reach out today to learn how LFM can help your business.

Looking for more ways to grow your business and save time? Check out some free resources for farmers and food hubs:

• • • Read about how LFM helps one food hub work with over 50 producers:
      • “What helps is that LFM is organized in a way that as producers, we list inventory ourselves, set prices, and describe our own products. We maintain the transparency of sourcing—you can see where every product comes from and customers value that.” –Kate Donald, Stout Oak Farm
    • Looking to save time? Here’s how to gain 20 hours a week.
    • Check out our free Guide to CSA Retention
    • Want to keep up with all things Local Food Marketplace? Join our email list!

The post Customizable Farm Shares: 4 Models first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

When Fiddlehead Farms had a smaller yield of spinach than expected, farmer Heather Coffey needed a quick solution to update over 150 customer orders with smaller bags of spinach.  Luckily, LFM’s latest software update includes bulk options to help farmers change multiple customer orders with just a few clicks of a button.

“I can see all members who ordered spinach, check a box to select all the orders, and put a new price per bag so everyone could get a smaller bag of spinach instead. LFM’s new features worked like a charm to make sure everyone could get a taste!” -Heather Coffey, Fiddlehead Farm

On pack day, farmers don’t have time to waste—that’s why LFM is making it easy to make bulk order changes with just a few clicks. Watch the video below to see the steps to update products from multiple orders at once!

Ready to save time when it counts? Schedule a demo with Local Food Marketplace.

Here are the changes you can make to multiple your orders at once:

• Apply a Promo Code
• Update Customer Location
• Update Order Period
• Add a Distribution Fee
• Add a Product
• Swap Products
• Credit Products
  

  Bulk Update Options on Local Food Marketplace

Here’s how LFM customers can make these changes:

1. 1. • On the Orders page, new options under the “Bulk Actions” drop down can help you make quick changes to multiple customer orders at once. Changing pick up locations at the last minute? Offering a special discount? Need to add on a different product due to crop failures? Just select the check box for impacted orders, and select an option under “Bulk Actions.”
      • On the Pack Orders page, sort orders by “product.” If you’d like to swap a product, select the double sided arrow.

More Ways to Save Time When Selling Local Food:

• Optimize your pack line! Here’s how one food hub reduce their pack line hours by 40%
• Time is Money: How to Save 20 Hours a Week
• How to Save Time on Producer Payments

The post [New!] Bulk Order Updates to Help You Save Time first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Eight Ways to Save Hours on Your Pack Line This Summer

Summer means longer days… and more hours at the pack line. Keeping large inventories organized and fulfilling custom orders for your shoppers takes work. With the amount of time and labor you spend packing orders, expanding sales channels or offering more variety to your customers may seem impossible.

Delivered Fresh is an online food hub that aggregates products from over 60 local farmers and delivers to hundreds of homes each week. For Delivered Fresh, managing their produce pack line started to get out of hand during the explosive growth of online ordering at the beginning of the pandemic.

But by stepping back and analyzing their process, Delivered Fresh was able to make a series of small changes that ultimately reduced their pack line time by 40%. How did they do it? Read on for eight ways Delivered Fresh is saving time on their pack line this summer—and how LFM can help.

Delivered Fresh uses Local Food Marketplace’s software to power their online hub. From generating pack lists to creating delivery routes, LFM’s features help support hubs, farmers, and markets grow without increasing time and labor costs. Reach out today to schedule a software demo and learn more about how LFM can help you save time and take on more orders.

Eight Ways to Save Time on Produce Pack Lines

1. Where to Start: Analyze your Process.

At the heat of the pandemic, the six-person order fulfillment team at Delivered Fresh was sometimes working past one in the morning to pack weekly orders. So how did they reign in this process to their current system, which takes a fraction of the time? According to Operations Manager David Nowacoski, the first step was to figure out what wasn’t working.

We started to time our process from the moment we received products to the moment they were out the door. And then we started looking at every step and asking, how can we make it better?”

By analyzing their current process, the team at Delivered Fresh was able to identify bottlenecks in the process. David encourages businesses to get out a stopwatch and time your process.

David advises food hub managers to identify exactly what is slowing you down before making any changes. “Don’t try to implement something unless you know the problem you’re addressing.”

After fully analyzing their process, the following adjustments saved Delivered Fresh hours of time on order fulfillment.

2. Count and organize product as soon as it’s received.

Simplifying your packing process starts from the moment a product enters your warehouse.

Common mistakes in the receiving stage include not counting incoming product. If a shipment is misdelivered or incorrectly harvested, that’s something you’ll want to know as soon as you receive the product—not on delivery day when you realize you’re short a case of carrots for your wholesale orders.

The Delivered Fresh team uses LFM to generate a pick list to double check and organize producer deliveries.

Delivered Fresh works with over 60 producers—so organization and communication with each producer is key.

We asked David: How do you streamline communication between the hub and all your producers?

That’s something that Local Food Marketplace has taken care of for us from day one. From the automated pick list going out the door, to the ability to just send a message to all the producers—we don’t need to add anything to the equation. LFM’s system handles the communication piece really well for us.” – David Nowacoski

3. Pre-pack: Break down larger cases right away.

Rather than immediately putting cases of food into storage when they arrive, the team breaks down the products into smaller sizes. For example, a 50-pound box of potatoes will get broken down into one-pound bags, which are easier to grab later and toss into bags for customer orders.

This way, they know how many cases of each product to set aside upon arrival for larger wholesale orders. After that, they can focus on breaking down the rest of the larger cases into smaller sizes for customer orders.

Weighing and packaging vegetables as soon as they arrive at the hub is a huge time saver. And the team uses a picklist generated by LFM to make sure they have the right amount of product available for final orders.

4. Plan Your Routes Efficiently!

Delivered Fresh doesn’t wait until the day of to plan their delivery routes. Luckily, this process is made easy through LFM’s integration with Routific. This routing software is able to quickly plan efficient delivery routes that help drivers hit the most stops in the least amount of time and mileage.

After generating a series of routes in the system, the team creates a summary sheet for the delivery driver that lists the address for each stop, as well as customer names and phone numbers.

5. Decide what works best for your packing lists: Paper or Digital.

Even in a digital world, paper has some advantages.

The staff likes to use paper for the convenience of quickly checking off items, circling products that haven’t been packed, writing notes in the margin, or carrying the list around with them to the walk-in freezer – where carrying iPads wouldn’t be practical or possible.

However, digital does come in handy for Delivered Fresh. Delivered Fresh sells some products “by the pound” rather than “by the each.” Selling by weight can trip up many online ordering systems, but it’s not a problem with LFM. The staff at Delivered Fresh weigh out products sold by pound when packing orders, and then use an iPad to edit weights directly on customer order forms within LFM. This automatically updates and calculates prices.

 6. Create Stations on Your Pack Line

The day before delivery, the Delivered Fresh team starts packing orders.

To efficiently manage your pack lines in a bustling hub like Delivered Fresh, assign different staff to each of the sections of your inventory space, such as freezer, walk-in cooler, or dry goods area.

At Delivered Fresh, the staff splits responsibilities into three areas (freezer, fridge, and shelf), and then generates pack lists for each staff member. The checklists are sorted by product to make it easy for staff to pull orders together.

We really need to be as quick as possible packing orders, and being able to sort by product on LFM is perfect. We can sort the packing list just for frozen items for our staff working in the freezer. For stuff like that—LFM just works perfectly.”

LFM offers versatile sorting options for pack lists, allowing grouping by order, product, customer location, route, producer, or packing order.

An LFM-generated packing list grouped by product.

7. Save the fragile products for last!

You’d never want your cashier at the grocery store to put a loaf of bread on the bottom of the bag. Apply this same logic to the order you pack customer orders.

We don’t prepack eggs. We wait until just before they go out the door to avoid breakage. And we don’t prepack bottles of milk because they’re just too bulky. So staff will circle those items on the shelf so the packers of the truck know to grab those items.”

8. Pack/Load Products in Reverse Order of Delivery

Once bags from all three stations are filled, they are added to a small cooler for each customer. Coolers are placed in the fridge in reverse order of delivery, to be ready to go in the truck the next day.

On delivery day each Thursday morning, the team follows a Route Summary Sheet to place orders in the truck in the most logical order—so that the first order to be delivered is the last one placed in the truck.

The small amount of time planning and arranging the correct order to load up the van can save delivery drivers hours of time a week when delivery product.

9. Double Check Products as You Load the Van

The last thing you want is to leave an order behind! Even if you team has packed every order perfectly, you should still double check to avoid mistakes.

When loading the van, the driver at Delivered Fresh uses a Route Summary Sheet from LFM to confirm that every order makes it to the truck.

We all make mistakes – but a strong inventory management system makes it easier to correct them. If the Delivered Fresh team finds some leftover products after the van has been loaded, they can sort orders by product within LFM to check which customers were meant to have that product.

The Results:

Prior to streamlining their process, Delivered Fresh needed three dedicated delivery days to get all their orders out the door. After analyzing bottlenecks, the hub delivers the same number of orders in just two delivery days. Getting their fresh food sooner has made a world of difference to Delivered Fresh’s customers.

Ready to find time savings that even your customers will notice? Reach out to LFM today to learn more about how our software can help you streamline your process.

How LFM Can Help.

Looking to cut down your time on the pack line? Here are just some of the features that are helping hubs like Delivered Fresh cut their packing time by over one third this summer:

• Automated Pick and Pack Lists
• Efficient Route Planning
• Automated producer and customer communication

Join us for a free demo to learn more.

Check out the resources below to learn more about how LFM is helping local food grow:

• Learn how farmers are using data to grow profit.
• Looking to save time? Here’s how to gain 20 hours a week.
• Check out our free Guide to Increasing Average Order Value
• Read about how LFM helps one food hub work with over 50 producers:
  • “What helps is that LFM is organized in a way that as producers, we list inventory ourselves, set prices, and describe our own products. We maintain the transparency of sourcing—you can see where every product comes from and customers value that.” –Kate Donald, Stout Oak Farm
• Want to keep up with all things Local Food Marketplace? Join our email list!

The post How Delivered Fresh Cut Produce Pack Line Times by 40% with Local Food Marketplace first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

New LFM Feature: automatically generate a “What’s in the Box” Email.

Effective communication with your farm share customers is key to keeping them coming back season after season. Do you keep your customers in the loop after they sign up for your shares?

If you aren’t already sending a “What’s in the Box” email—start now. Not only does this email let your customers know what to expect in their upcoming share, it’s also an opportunity for you to build engagement and grow revenue.

To help our customers save time in their busiest seasons, Local Food Marketplace has recently added a feature that automates this process. Customers licensing the subscription module can schedule an email that will generate and send this email for all customers and share types. Interested in licensing the subscriptions module? Contact us today!

What’s a “What’s in the Box” Email?

A few days before farm shares are ready for pickup or delivery, send out an email that lets them know what local products you’ll include in their “box” this week.

Excerpt of a “What’s in the Box” Email generated by LFM.

Sending a “What’s in the Box” message before each share reminds customers to confirm their orders and to pickup their shares. Consistent emails also help further establish your organization as an exciting part of their weekly or monthly routine. Many shoppers look out for this email before planning meals for the week! The more that customers engage with your products in this way, the more likely they’ll be to sign up next season.

Combine this email with other materials that set CSA customers up for success. For example, post recipes on your website so that shoppers can get ideas for what to do with the food they order from you!

Customizable Farm Shares

If you offer customizable farm shares, use this email to remind members to make their final product selections. The “What’s in the Box” email should include a list of substitution options, and a link back to your storefront to customize their farm share.

By bringing customers back to your online storefront to customize their shares, not only will they be happier with the final contents of their box, they’ll also be more likely to add more items to their order.

Customers appreciate flexibility to accommodate their preferences, as well as transparency and communication through this consistent email.

Local Food Marketplace believes that transparency with your customer is key. That’s why we’re helping to streamline your process with automated emails. To learn more about how LFM’s software can grow your business, schedule a demo today.

Increasing CSA Engagement

To recap, here’s how sending a “What’s in the Box” email can help keep your CSA members engaged:

• • Drum up excitement for their upcoming farm share
  • Encourage members to visit you site – and add more products to their order
  • Establish communication from your farm as a consistent (and exciting!) part of their weekly routine

Looking for more ways to grow your business and save time? Check out some free resources for farmers and food hubs:

• • • Read about how LFM helps one food hub work with over 50 producers:
      • “What helps is that LFM is organized in a way that as producers, we list inventory ourselves, set prices, and describe our own products. We maintain the transparency of sourcing—you can see where every product comes from and customers value that.” –Kate Donald, Stout Oak Farm
    • Looking to save time? Here’s how to gain 20 hours a week.
    • Check out our free Guide to CSA Retention
    • Want to keep up with all things Local Food Marketplace? Join our email list!

The post How To Boost CSA Engagement & Grow Revenue with One Recurring Email first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Growing Your Email List: For Farmers & Food Hubs

The following tips are excerpted from our free “Email Marketing Toolkit for Farmers & Food Hubs”.

A good place to start collecting email addresses is in-person. Start your list the old-fashioned way with a pen & clipboard at farmers markets, events, your farm store, or any place where you are in contact with potential customers. Conferences and other events that connect buyers and producers are a key place to meet potential wholesale customers. Be sure to bring a sign-up sheet to these events!

Another way to get your real-life shoppers to your website is to create QR Codes linking to your online store or newsletter sign up page. Print those QR codes onto a sign for your stand at the farmers’ market, or your table at a conference—that way any passer-by can just scan the code with their phone to go straight to your website.

Your website is another key source of emails. Create a form on your website to encourage prospects to leave their name and email address if they’d like to keep up with your business. You can list the newsletter form on your homepage, within your blog posts, and on a popup that appears on your website.

Use your social media to place a call out. Direct your followers to your newsletter form via link, or even just ask them to send their email to you via direct message on Instagram or Facebook.

Don’t forget about your current customers! Prompt customers to share their email address when placing an online order. With Local Food Marketplace’s online ordering platform, all shoppers use their email to create an account, and this information is shared to MailChimp via a simple integration.

Make sure to give customers an incentive. If they’re sharing their email address, what are they getting in return? Whether it’s recipes, promo and discount codes, information about upcoming events, or more stories about your farm(s), make sure to let folks know what sort of emails they can expect in exchange for signing on to your list.

One specific type of incentive is a lead magnet. This is a free resource given to potential customers in exchange for their email address. Content such as vegetable storage guides, recipe books, gardening tips, and more can be packaged into a pdf document that folks can download from your website after submitting their email address. You can also use discounts and promo codes as lead magnets. Create a popup that advertises for a percentage off their first order. Shoppers will submit their information to receive the code in a follow up email.

Want to learn more? Download Your Free Email Marketing Toolkit.

Additional Marketing Resources

Consistent, quality marketing is essential for successful businesses, especially online markets. Local Food Marketplace integrates with Mailchimp to provide a streamlined, in-depth customer database for you to promote your marketplace. If you’re looking for more information on how to increase sales and marketing for farms, food hubs, farmers markets, and CSAs, check out our recent blog posts:

• • How Quality Photos Drive Sales
  • Social Media Strategies to Maximize your Online Store
  • How to use Press Releases to Promote your Online Store

The post Six Ways to Grow Your Email List first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Dreaming Out Loud is a DC-based nonprofit with the mission of creating economic opportunities for marginalized communities through building a healthy and equitable food system. Their CSA program, called Black Farm CSA, aims to economically support black and brown farmers. The program was also created to bring more access to high quality food to the community.

We recently sat down with William Jennings, the Food Access Program Manager of the organization. Read on to see how Local Food Marketplace (LFM) helps Dreaming Out Loud spread the word about their program, increase food access, offer customizable farm shares, grow sales, and keep good data.

Black Farm CSA Facts:

• • Economically supporting marginalized communities
  • Using LFM to sell 4 different types of farm shares
  • Gained 1,000 new customer accounts in 2022
  • Home delivery to DC residents or pickup at farmers markets
  • Produce from black, brown, and value-aligned farmers

How LFM helped Black Farm CSA Grow:

• • More options and opportunities for customers
  • New customization options for CSA subscribers
  • Adding new sales channels
  • Strong data for nonprofit reporting

About the Organization

Dreaming Out Loud is a mission-based nonprofit that aims to fill the food access gaps in Washington DC. The organization operates as a food hub, which aggregates and distributes food produced by local Black farmers. In an effort to combat systemic inequalities in the food system, Dreaming Out Loud launched Black Farm CSA.

“We offer a CSA program called Black Farm CSA, because we want to highlight black, brown, and value-aligned farmers in the local area. We want to economically support them. We also want to highlight that these farmers exist, and this is the high-quality produce they are growing.”

Today, Dreaming Out Loud works with 30 local food producers. Black Farm CSA offers four different types of farm shares via their online platform: The “Farmer’s Bounty” Share, The Green Share, The “Ready-for-Dinner” Share, and a Customizable Share.

Spreading the Word

Dreaming Out Loud hosts in-person farmers markets, but also sees online sales as an important medium to reach more members of the community, and to spread the word about Black Farm CSA.

“Using LFM as an online platform to better spread the word about our CSA was a great approach,” says William. “We wanted to market to people that would see our online storefront. We are able to spread the word faster and better through an online platform.”

Local Food Marketplace’s software platform also offers markets like Dreaming Out Loud the option to list exactly which farm each produce is coming from. Market managers can share more about each farmer and producer through profiles on the “Meet Our Producers” page.

William found that offering products online through LFM has helped to increase food access for the community. With Black Farm CSA’s LFM-powered storefront, “there’s an easier approach to actually order. People don’t need to leave their house and travel far away. There could be economic barriers such as not having a car—so we’re offering a way to order online. We’re giving people the choice that they don’t even have to leave their home. They can order online and we can deliver to them.”

Why LFM’s Platform?

Prior to using Local Food Marketplace, Black Farm CSA was sold through a website with limited options. Without a robust software system, the organization was unable to offer many choices for their customers.

“With LFM, we can give our customers even more options. We are able to do delivery, and offer an e-commerce store.”

Flexible Payment Options

In the past, customers paid up front for the entire season of CSA shares. With LFM, the organization was able to implement a pay-by-order system.

“We set up our LFM site so that these shares are pay by the order. So you don’t have to pay a huge fee at the start of the season,” says William. “Our CSA program is more of a subscription program where you can pay by the week, you can put it on hold if you want, you can cancel it or you can switch to another of our four CSA shares. We want to make it as customizable and adaptable for the customer as they want.”

New Sales Channels

With their previous online site, Dreaming Out Loud was only selling their CSA shares online. With LFM, the organization is also listing individual items from their inventory on their ecommerce site.

“So, in addition to buying a CSA share online, LFM gave us the opportunity to give customers a way to buy a single product,” says William. “So, you can order a couple of apples or a bunch of collard greens instead of buying a whole CSA share. That led to an increase in new customer accounts because they could see all of the availability on our website.”

In fact, Black Farm CSA saw over 1,000 new accounts created in LFM over the course of 2022—their first year using the platform.

A Better Ordering Experience

Black Farm CSA uses social media posts to encourage online ordering. Source: https://www.instagram.com/blackfarmcsa/

“Using LFM also increased ordering because it made ordering more enticing.” For Dreaming Out Loud’s customers, LFM’s ecommerce site offers a more enticing ordering experience. William had found that customers appreciate the ability to browse the online store and chose single items based on their photos, rather than only being locked into a pre-ordered CSA.  

“We also make Dreaming Out Loud value-added products such as seasonings and granola and other items so we can not only sell the produce that we aggregate from our black, brown, and value aligned farmers, but we can sell value-added products that we make from their produce. Being able to sell that online too was a definite plus and a definite reason why we sell using LFM.”

Subscription Builder

Black Farm CSA introduced a new share option—customizable shares—in 2022. For this share option, shoppers can choose what items they’d like to have in their farm share each week. This was possible thanks to LFM’s new Subscription Builder software.

“We love that Subscription Builder gave our customers even more options. And it gave us a new way to do CSA. Before Subscription Builder we never had the customizable share option, so it was new for us, it was new for customers. I think it gave people a new idea of how CSAs can be run.”

What Customers Wanted

William found that before using LFM’s Subscription Builder, customers were asking for the option to customize the produce that came with their farm shares.

“And then LFM came out with Subscription Builder, and for some customers that really sealed the deal on why they wanted a CSA share from us.”  

Growing Sales

William attributes the growth of Black Farmer CSA to LFM’s user-friendly storefront, the ability to offer a whole inventory to customers, and the new customizable share options.

“We’re seeing an increase in the numbers of customer accounts that have been created on the site. That has jumped up dramatically. We’re also seeing an increase in the amount of orders we’re getting.”

Data Reporting

William sees accurate data reporting as an important part of keeping the nonprofit running. “LFM has really helped us out on that front. Before this year, our data was in multiple different places. We didn’t have a central home to access data. With LFM, all of it ties to the back end. You can see all of the data that has been gathered there and search for it easily. And that really gives us some more ease.”

“Since we’re a nonprofit, we need figures and stats. We don’t only need to know how the CSA is doing at the end of the year, but how it’s doing in the middle of the year, or the first month, or a random week in July. We need this data for outside reporting, so it’s a great function to be able to easily compile all the data reports to see how we’re selling and what we’re selling. It tells us more about why we’re selling when we can look at the data from the past not only months, but years.”

If you’re looking for the right software to help your organization sell local food, please don’t hesitate to reach out for a free demo of LFM.

Looking for more ways to grow your business and save time? Check out some free resources for farmers and food hubs:

• • • Read about how LFM helps one food hub work with over 50 producers:
      • “What helps is that LFM is organized in a way that as producers, we list inventory ourselves, set prices, and describe our own products. We maintain the transparency of sourcing—you can see where every product comes from and customers value that.” –Kate Donald, Stout Oak Farm
    • Looking to save time? Here’s how to gain 20 hours a week.
    • Check out our free Guide to CSA Retention
    • Want to keep up with all things Local Food Marketplace? Join our email list!

The post How Dreaming Out Loud’s Black Farm CSA Gained 1,000 New Members with LFM first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Our goal at Local Food Marketplace is to help support local food ecosystems. Our software solutions are helping farmers, food hubs, and markets sell and distribute local food. When shopping online, language barriers can get in the way of local food access. That’s why, in our next software release, Local Food Marketplace will include language translation through integration with Weglot!

Weglot is a website translation service that makes it easy to accurately translate your Marketplace storefront. We are excited to offer this integration to LFM customers starting with our next software update in mid-February 2023. If you would like to learn more about how LFM can help you business sell local food, reach out today for a product demo!

A Multilingual Storefront Made Easy

Sell Local Food In More Than One Language

With this easy-to-use integration, setting up language translation only takes a few simple steps (with no coding required!). The integration offers automated translation of your customer-facing marketplace, while still giving you full control to review and edit translations. Once it’s all set up, your customers can easily shop for local food in the language(s) you choose to support.

At Local Food Marketplace, we see this integration as an opportunity to increase access to local food. By choosing an ecommerce platform with multilingual options, you will be able to provide local food to a wider percentage of your community. This new feature will not only help to improve the online shopping experience for your customers, but it will also help to increase sales and grow your business.

Multilingual SEO

In addition to improving customer experience, Weglot also offers multilingual SEO, making it easier for your customers to find your site on Google. This will help increase your visibility to customers speaking languages other than English.

A Multilingual Marketplace!

How to Translate your Marketplace with the Weglot Integration

Local Food Marketplace customers can start using this feature with our next software release in mid-February. If this is something you’d like to start using, please reach out to our support team! It’s just a few steps to get started.

There is no additional cost on your LFM invoice to use this integration, however you will need to create an account with Weglot. You can review their plans and pricing page here.

Your Customers Can Toggle Storefront Language with a Single Click.

Once the integration is set up, Weglot is able to automatically translate your storefront. From there, you may choose to edit any translation—you’re in control! Check out Weglot’s site to learn more about how it works: https://weglot.com/

Visitors to your storefront will see an option to toggle between languages. It’s just a click of a button to view a translated page.

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To learn more about this integration or other ways our software can help you sell local food, schedule a free demo today!

The post New LFM Integration! Translate your Marketplace with Weglot first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

In 2015, Small Farm Central coined “CSA Day” to recognize that February is the most popular time of the year to join a CSA (aka Community Supported Agriculture). Since then, the CSA Innovation Network has expanded this day into a full week in February dedicated to supporting and promoting Community Supported Agriculture. Please check our the CSA Innovation Network’s CSA Week page to learn more! There, you can sing up for the The CSA Innovation Network’s free toolkit, and add your farm/organization to the CSA Week Participants Map.

CSA Innovation Network CSA Week Page: https://www.csainnovationnetwork.org/csa-week 

When is CSA Week this year?

The CSA Innovation Network will be celebrating CSA Week from February 19 to February 25, 2024. If you’re running a CSA, this will be the week to focus on engaging with your customers. If you’re a local food advocate, this is the time to support local food producers by signing up for farm shares, and spreading the word both in person and online! Here at Local Food Marketplace, we’re proud to support local food producers.

We’ve put together some stories and resources to help you prepare for CSA week–see below! In the meantime, is your business ready for growing season? Local Food Marketplace provides software to manage both traditional and customizable CSAs. Learn more by scheduling a free demo today!

Start Here: Free Guides to Help You Retain Customers and Sell More

One of the benefits of local food for the consumer is forming a relationship with their food producers. By focusing on these customer relationships, you can create lifelong farm share subscribers. Check out the guides below for expert advice and proven strategies to retain your CSA customers, and to increase the value of these relationships.

1. Cultivate Customers & Grow Value: A Guide to CSA Retention

2. Increasing Average Order Size: A Farmer & Food Hub’s Guide

Resources from CSA Innovation Network

“CSA Day” was first started by Small Farm Central. The CSA Innovation Network has gone one step further to promote a full CSA Week from Feb 20-26. Check out their site for a free digital toolkit to help you promote your CSA: https://www.csainnovationnetwork.org/csa-week

Farm Share Success Stories

Learn how Farmers & Food Hubs are Running their CSAs.

Creating Customizable CSAs with Fiddlehead Farm

Check out Heather Coffey’s step-by-step guide to using technology to sell fully customizable CSAs.

“Customizable subscriptions are a no-brainer for me,” says Heather. “[Fiddlehead Farm’s CSA members] are making the commitment to local and the commitment to eating what’s in season, so I can at least give them the choice of everything that’s in the garden.”

 

Flexible CSA Payment Options with Upswing Farm

“We use our LFM-powered site to offer our CSA on a sliding scale at three price points. I think this brings awareness to the fact that everyone deserves access to fresh food. And if the total isn’t in balance at the end of the year, we use funds from the community support tier to donate extra CSAs to food pantries. This way we are deliberately donating high-quality, varied produce that we could have sold for a profit—not just the stuff we grew too much of.”

Expanding Sales Channels with Blue Sky Organic Farms

Today, Blue Sky Organic Farms operates a large CSA farm share program, participates in four weekly farmers markets, sells to a large wholesale client base, and runs an on-site farm store full of local food and products from other Arizona-based producers.

“Before we implemented LFM, only CSA customers could buy online. Now, anyone can pick up an order. And since LFM accommodates our whole inventory, we could expand our other product offerings to CSA customers.”

How Do I Market My Farm Share?

If you’re getting ready to sign up CSA customers this February, you’ll want to harness your website & social media to tell your store. Check out these blog posts for some marketing tips to help you promote your CSA effectively.

1. Social Media Strategies to Maximize your Online Store

2. How to Use Press Releases to Promote Your Online Store

3. Farms & Facebook Pixels

4. MailChimp Integration for Powerful Marketing

5. How Quality Photos Drive Sales

How do I Chose a Software to Manage My CSA?

Running a CSA requires incredible attention to detail and organization. If you’re like many farmers, you’ve managed to do everything with Excel, QuickBooks, and email so far — but sometimes managing everything this way can feel like more trouble than it’s worth. Technology can help lighten that load.

Winter is the perfect time to onboard a new system that can help you stay organized, increase sales, manage data, and grow your business. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to LFM to schedule a demo to see our software in action and learn how we can help your business. In the meantime, read on to learn about how software can help you manage your CSA.

1. New Feature – “Subscription Builder” for Farm Shares

2. Evaluating Online Sales Platforms

What tools do I need to run a successful farm share?

A user-friendly website

 A way to manage deliveries or pickups

 Flexibility and customization options for customers

Easy inventory management

 Email communication with customers

Local Food Marketplace offers all of these tools in one single platform. And we’ve even added new features especially for those farms and food hubs that offer CSA shares & subscriptions.

If you have any questions about how LFM can help you to set up your farm shares for success, just click here to set up a free demo call.

More Resources to Help Upgrade Your Farm Share Subscriptions:

• • • • Here’s How Local Food Can Join the Subscription Economy
      • Cultivate Customers & Grow Value: A Guide to CSA Retention
      • How Farmers are using Data to Increase Profit
      • Growing Sales and Sliding Scales: An Interview with Upswing Farm
      • A Farmer’s Guide to Online Orders

Still searching for a CSA software solution? Meet with us for a free demo!

The post CSA Week Resources first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Local Food Marketplace offers an unmatched reporting database to help food hubs, farmers, and markets easily analyze their data—with no additional fees. Here are just some of the 30+ reports that LFM customers are using to grow their profit:

Sales by Product

Which of your fruits and veggies sell best? Generate reports to see exactly which products you are selling the most (or least). So, you can focus on producing what your customers want the most.

“The platform provides the sales data and information we need to modify our production based on what people are actually eating.”

-Heather Coffey, Fiddlehead Farm.

Read More: Creating Customizable CSAs with Fiddlehead Farm

Sales by Location

You’re putting the work to get local food out to the community. But are you visiting the most in-demand locations? Use this report to determine your most profitable distribution locations, so you can create a delivery schedule that’s worth your time.

Take your data one step further by using reports to find out which products sell best at each location. If strawberry jam sells better than blueberry at one of your mobile markets, you can know which flavor to stock for that location!

Sales by Customer

Understanding your customer is key to your success. Quickly export customer reports to learn which of your customers are buying the most, and when. This data can help you decide when to time your next marketing push to restaurants. Or even whether to dedicate your resources to a different type of customer entirely.

 “We almost doubled our sales, because we were buying and selling retail instead of just moving it through wholesale. LFM made this big shift possible!”

-Katie Nixon, Kansas City Food Hub

Read More: Food Hub Success with Kansas City Food Hub

Pounds of Food Distributed

For organizations that rely on grant funding, end-of-year reporting or RFP data collection can be quite tedious. LFM’s sales reports can be generated in an instant. Quickly export data on how many pounds of food you were able to distribute over the last year. You can even run comparative reports to show how much you’ve grown from one period to another.

“The built-in reporting functions have made it so easy to keep track of year-to-year data. I highly recommend LFM to anyone operating a flexible subscription-based program!”

-Operations Manager, Corbin Hill Food Project

Wrapping Up

Good data is important—that’s why LFM makes it easy to export and analyze your own sales data. And LFM’s customizable dashboards give you a quick glance what’s coming this week, how much you’ve sold, year-over-year data comparisons, and more. Are you ready to make better business decisions in 2023? Reach out for a free consultation today.

Looking to learn more about increasing profit? Check out our free Farmers Guide to Increasing Average Order Size for expert advice on increasing the value of every online order.

The post How Farmers Are Using Data to Increase Profit first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.